P&P February 2016

staff spotlight

Name: Emily Campbell Title: Director of Organizational Effectiveness (OE) Time at APHSA: 10 months Life Before APHSA: Prior to joining the APHSA team, I worked in the secretary’s office as an area administrator at the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. This position followed nearly 20 years in public service, with several years spent working in local health and human service agencies in both the United States and Europe, primarily in child welfare. I also served on the executive team of APHSA’s National Staff Development and Training Association (NSDTA) affiliate as the vice president of Programs. I received my BA in Social Work and Psychology from the University of Wisconsin—Madison and an MS in Health and Social Services from the London School of Economics. Priorities at APHSA: The focus of my work at APHSA is to lead the OE consulting practice team. I am also keen to continuously improve and share our OE tools and methods, which were developed through our field work over the years with our members. As a part of the APHSA executive team, I also work to identify opportunities to integrate our OE methods internally and help ensure that our day-to-day work is guided by both our strategy and a real-time understanding of our own capacity to meet the needs of our members. What I Can Do for Our Members: The OE team provides customized technical assistance to human-serving organizations and communities. We can partner with leaders

at all levels in an organization to facilitate effective solu- tions that help improve capacity, culture, performance, and outcomes. Whether your agency is looking to solve a thorny issue or problem, or spread out and scale your efforts to advance up the Human Service Value Curve, we are here to serve you. We are also here to connect you with your peers and facilitate the exchange of knowledge about the ways in which effective organizations can sustain change and con- tinuously engage the human-serving workforce. When Not Working: I am the mother of three active children, ages 15, 12, and 7, which means that on any given day when I am not in the field, I can be found at the ice rink, gym, and, more often than not, at our local urgent care! Married to a Scot, we try as a family to visit our UK-based family as much as we can. When I have free time of my own, I like to geo-cache, play the hand bells in my church, and do yoga. Each year, I also try to honor a commitment to volun- teering. Recent activities include helping fundraise for public libraries and volunteering with my family to serve breakfast to homeless families in my community. A Lesson My MotherTaught Me: “Assume good will.” This is a good lesson for people and organizations, too. Most people I meet entered into the field of human services inspired by a mission to serve others and seek to learn what it is like to walk in another person’s shoes. Howwe work together can make just as much of an impact on outcomes as the work that we choose to do. On occasion, our effort and enthusiasm can get misaligned or misinterpreted. By assuming positive intent, we become more open to working with others to achieve a common goal.

OUTCOMES continued from page 9

FOCUSING ON PEOPLE FIRST Adaptive human service leaders also share a non-negotiable trait. They have a passion for the people they serve—and they never lose sight of it. Virginia Pryor, deputy director of Child Welfare at the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services, says it best: “The only way to change the lives of families and systems is to be inside them. You have to be in there day in and day out, have to be up to the challenge to do it.”

what Four Oaks, a private organization offering child welfare, juvenile justice and mental health services to youth in Cedar Rapids, Iowa did. Eight years ago, the leadership determined that it could not prove that it was achieving its mission. This spurred the organiza- tion to begin a journey of significant business model changes. Working toward this goal demanded that the organization stretch. Without the willingness to experiment with new ways of working, Four Oaks would not have the successes it has today.

Reference Notes 1. The Human Services Summit was convened by Leadership for a NetworkedWorld and the Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard University, in collaboration with Accenture. 2. © The Human Services Value Curve by Antonio M. Oftelie & Leadership for a Networked World is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Based on a work at http:// lnwprogram.org/hsvc. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://lnwprogram.org/hsvc

February 2016   Policy&Practice 25